Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
engagement. But the rain was now falling in torrents; heavy peals of
thunder, crashing through the forest, drowned the discharges of the two
guns which Jackson had brought up through the woods, and the red flash
of musketry paled before the vivid lightning. Much of the ammunition
was rendered useless, the men were unable to discharge their pieces,
and the fierce wind lashed the rain in the faces of the Confederates.
The night grew darker and the tempest fiercer; and as if by mutual
consent the opposing lines drew gradually apart.[4]
On the side of the Confederates only half the force had been engaged.
Starke’s division never came into action, and of Hill’s and Lawton’s
there were still brigades in reserve. 500 men were killed or wounded;
but although the three Federal divisions are reported to have lost
1,000, they had held their ground, and Jackson was thwarted in his
design. Pope’s trains and his whole army reached Fairfax Court House
without further disaster. But the persistent attacks of his
indefatigable foe had broken down his resolution. He had intended, he
told Halleck, when Jackson’s march down the Little River turnpike was
first announced, to attack the Confederates the next day, or “certainly
the day after.”
Sept. 2 The action at Chantilly, however, induced a more prudent mood;
and, on the morning of the 2nd, he reported that “there was an intense
idea among the troops that they must get behind the intrenchments [of
Alexandria]; that there was an undoubted purpose, on the part of the
enemy, to keep on slowly turning his position so as to come in on the
right, and that the forces under his command were unable to prevent him
doing so in the open field. Halleck must decide what was to be done.”
The reply was prompt, Pope was to bring his forces, “as best he could,”
under the shelter of the heavy guns.
Whatever might be the truth as regards the troops, there could be no
question but that the general was demoralised; and, preceded by
thousands of stragglers, the army fell back without further delay to
the Potomac. It was not followed except by Stuart. “It was found,” says
Lee, in his official dispatch, ”that the enemy had conducted his
retreat so rapidly that the attempt to interfere with him was
abandoned. The proximity of the fortifications around Alexandria and
Washington rendered further pursuit useless.”
On the same day General McClellan was entrusted with the defence of
Washington, and Pope, permitted to resign, was soon afterwards
relegated to an obscure
command against the Indians of the North-west. His errors had been
flagrant. He can hardly be charged with want of energy, but his energy
was spasmodic; on the field of battle he was strangely indolent, and
yet he distrusted the reports of others. But more fatal than his
neglect of personal reconnaissance was his power of self-deception. He
was absolutely incapable of putting himself in his enemy’s place, and
time after time he acted on the supposition that Lee and Jackson would
do exactly what he most wished them to do. When his supplies were
destroyed, he concentrated at Manassas Junction, convinced that Jackson
would remain to be overwhelmed. When he found Jackson near Sudley
Springs, and Thoroughfare Gap open, he rushed forward to attack him,
convinced that Longstreet could not be up for eight-and-forty hours.
When he sought shelter at Centreville, he told Halleck not to be
uneasy, convinced that Lee would knock his head against his fortified
position. Before the engagement at Chantilly he had made up his mind to
attack the enemy the next morning. A few hours later he reported that
his troops were utterly untrustworthy, although 20,000 of them, under
Franklin and Sumner, had not yet seen the enemy. In other respects his
want of prudence had thwarted his best endeavours. His cavalry at the
beginning of the campaign was effectively employed. But so extravagant
were his demands on the mounted arm, that before the battle of Manassas
half his regiments were dismounted. It is true that the troopers were
still indifferent horsemen and bad horse-masters, but it was the fault
of the commander that the unfortunate animals had no rest, that
brigades were sent to do the work of patrols, and that little heed was
paid to the physical wants of man and beast. As a tactician Pope was
incapable. As a strategist he lacked imagination, except in his
dispatches. His horizon was limited, and he measured the capacity of
his adversaries by his own. He was familiar with the campaign in the
Valley, with the operations in the Peninsula, and Cedar Run should have
enlightened him as to Jackson’s daring. But he had no conception that
his adversaries would cheerfully accept
great risks to achieve great ends; he had never dreamt of a general who
would deliberately divide his army, or of one who would make fifty-six
miles in two marches.
Lee, with his extraordinary insight into character, had played on Pope
as he had played on McClellan, and his strategy was justified by
success. In the space of three weeks he had carried the war from the
James to the Potomac. With an army that at no time exceeded 55,000 men
he had driven 80,000 into the fortifications of Washington.[5] He had
captured 30 guns, 7,000 prisoners, 20,000 rifles, and many stand of
colours; he had killed or wounded 13,500 Federals, destroyed supplies
and material of enormous value; and all this with a loss to the
Confederates of 10,000 officers and men.
So much had he done for the South; for his own reputation he had done
more. If, as Moltke avers, the junction of two armies on the field of
battle is the highest achievement of military genius,[6] the campaign
against Pope has seldom been surpassed; and the great counterstroke at
Manassas is sufficient in itself to make Lee’s reputation as a
tactician. Salamanca was perhaps a more brilliant example of the same
manœuvre, for at Salamanca Wellington had no reason to anticipate that
Marmont would blunder, and the mighty stroke which beat 40,000 French
in forty minutes was conceived in a few moments. Nor does Manassas
equal Austerlitz. No such subtle manœuvres were employed as those by
which Napoleon induced the Allies to lay bare their centre, and drew
them blindly to their doom. It was not due to the skill of Lee that
Pope weakened his left at the crisis of the battle.[7]
But in the rapidity with which the opportunity was seized, in the
combination of the three arms, and in the vigour of the blow, Manassas
is in no way inferior to Austerlitz or Salamanca. That the result was
less decisive was due to the greater difficulties of the battle-field,
to the stubborn resistance of the enemy, to the obstacles in the way of
rapid and connected movement, and to the inexperience of the troops.
Manassas was not, like Austerlitz and Salamanca, won by veteran
soldiers, commanded by trained officers, perfect in drill and inured to
discipline.
Lee’s strategic manœuvres were undoubtedly hazardous. But that an
antagonist of different calibre would have met them with condign
punishment is short-sighted criticism. Against an antagonist of
different calibre, against such generals as he was afterwards to
encounter, they would never have been attempted. “He studied his
adversary,” says his Military Secretary, “knew his peculiarities, and
adapted himself to them. His own methods no one could foresee-he varied
them with every change in the commanders opposed to him. He had one
method with McClellan, another with Pope, another with Hooker, another
with Meade, and yet another with Grant.” Nor was the dangerous period
of the Manassas campaign so protracted as might be thought. Jackson
marched north from Jefferson on August 25. On the 26th he reached
Bristoe Station. Pope, during these two days, might have thrown himself
either on Longstreet or on Jackson. He did neither, and on the morning
of the 27th, when Jackson reached Sudley Springs, the crisis had
passed. Had the Federals blocked Thoroughfare Gap that day, and
prevented Longstreet’s passage, Lee was still able to concentrate
without incurring defeat. Jackson, retreating by Aldie Gap, would have
joined Longstreet west of the mountains; Pope would have escaped
defeat, but the Confederates would have lost nothing.
Moreover, it is well to remember that the Confederate cavalry was in
every single respect, in leading, horsemanship, training, and knowledge
of the country, superior to the Federal. The whole population, too, was
staunchly
Southern. It was always probable, therefore, that information would be
scarce in the Federal camps, and that if some items did get through the
cavalry screen, they would be so late in reaching Pope’s headquarters
as to be practically useless. There can be no question that Lee, in
these operations, relied much on the skill of Stuart. Stuart was given
a free hand. Unlike Pope, Lee issued few orders as to the disposition
of his horsemen. He merely explained the manœuvres he was about to
undertake, pointed out where he wished the main body of the cavalry
should be found, and left all else to their commander. He had no need
to tell Stuart that he required information of the enemy, or to lay
down the method by which it was to be obtained. That was Stuart’s
normal duty, and right well was it performed. How admirably the young
cavalry general co-operated with Jackson has already been described.
The latter suggested, the former executed, and the combination of the
three arms, during the whole of Jackson’s operations against Pope, was
as close as when Ashby led his squadrons in the Valley.
Yet it was not on Stuart that fell, next to Lee, the honours of the
campaign. Brilliant as was the handling of the cavalry, impenetrable
the screen it formed, and ample the information it procured, the
breakdown of the Federal horse made the task comparatively simple.
Against adversaries whose chargers were so leg-weary that they could
hardly raise a trot it was easy to be bold. One of Stuart’s brigadiers
would have probably done the work as well as Stuart himself. But the
handling of the Valley army, from the time it left Jefferson on the
25th until Longstreet reached Gainesville on the 29th, demanded higher
qualities than vigilance and activity. Throughout the operations
Jackson’s endurance was the wonder of his staff. He hardly slept. He
was untiring in reconnaissance, in examination of the country and in
observation of the enemy, and no detail of the march escaped his
personal scrutiny. Yet his muscles were much less hardly used than his
brain. The intellectual problem was more difficult than the physical.
To march his
army fifty-six miles in two days was far simpler than to maintain it on
Pope’s flank until Longstreet came into line. The direction of his
marches, the position of his bivouacs, the distribution of his three
divisions, were the outcome of long premeditation. On the night of the
25th he disappeared into the darkness on the road to Salem leaving the
Federals under the conviction that he was making for the Valley. On the
26th he moved on Bristoe Station, rather than on Manassas Junction,
foreseeing that he might be interrupted from the south-west in his
destruction of the stores. On the 27th he postponed his departure till
night had fallen, moving in three columns, of which the column marching
on Centreville, whither he desired that the enemy should follow, was
the last to move. Concentrating at Sudley Springs on the 28th, he
placed himself in the best position to hold Pope fast, to combine with
Longstreet, or to escape by Aldie Gap; and on the 29th the ground he
had selected for battle enabled him to hold out against superior
numbers.
Neither strategically nor tactically did he make a single mistake. His
attack on King’s division at Groveton, on the evening of the 28th, was